Breaking Mr Walker

Chapter 8: Inch by Inch

Felicity

"Felicity? Are you alright?" Father asks, taking a seat beside me.

I refuse to answer him that I'm not, of course, I'm not. It's clear and obvious that the past 10 years are now catching up with me. All my frustrations and inhibitions are boiling at the surface.

"You need rest." He says softly, before turning to Nolan in exasperation. "Why isn't her room open, Mr Stalker."

Nolan bounces up in a single glide. "Miss Baker has the keys. She's deciding if she wants to stay here or return to her flat."

"Stay here, tonight. Felicity. For my peace. Please? You can leave after breakfast tomorrow. We have much to discuss in the wake of current circumstances." Father says. And he is right. There is much – too much – to discuss.

"Fine." I don't have the energy to argue with whatever new plan Father and Nolan have just signed the blueprints to.

I stand up and unlocked my room. The bed is made so I decide I will be going to sleep in it.

Father and Slip-Up excuse themselves when I step into my room. When they are out of earshot, I grab onto Nolan's wrist to pull him into my room. "Come in, Nolan."

"Miss Baker, I mustn't." He responds, tugging his hand out of my grasp.

"Mustn't?" I looked him straight in the eyes.

"Yes. I cannot come in, Miss Baker." He is acting way too robotic – even for a machine.

"Fine." I throw my key further into the room and push past him in an attempt to leave Baker Manor. Very quickly, his hands catch my waist and he pulls me back into him. I struggle against him, which I know is pointless. But a huge part of me enjoys running Nolan to the ground.

"Miss Baker, please, stop." He whispers into the back of my head.

So, I do, letting the air between us thicken as the tingle from his lips on my hair fizzle through my body. I stand still and Nolan drags me, is his strong arms. My feet barely scraping the floor, he whisks me to my bed.

"Stay." I say.

Nolan listens, kind of. He retreats to the doorway but stays within the room.

"Why did the security system at our building need to be changed, Nolan?"

"There was a break-in, the day after Boxing Day, and another break-in a day before New Years Eve." Nolan tells me.

"How did I not know about this? We were right there." I roll back onto my bed, looking at the ceiling and making knots in my hair.

"On the first attempt, they got into a flat on the first floor. On the second, they tried their luck on the second floor but failed."

"They got in?"

"Yes, the first-floor flat was ransacked."

"How comes they failed the second attempt?"

"I took a walk, Miss Baker."

I prop myself on my elbows, smiling at Nolan. "So that five-minute walk at 11 o'clock at night was you leaving me to save someone else's flat?"

"Not exactly." Nolan sighs.

"Then?" I'm curious. He never does anything that doesn't make sense. And him leaving me, when there was an obvious risk, definitely does not make sense.

"I got the alert. You were playing dress up. I decided to take a walk. That's all." Every word that comes out of his mouth is true. But I know that the emotionless man in front of me is clearly hiding something.